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Multiplying and dividing fractions

Multiplying and dividing fractions

From the course: Test Prep: GRE

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Multiplying and dividing fractions

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- [Voiceover] Now I'm going to talk about multiplying and dividing fractions. So this is actually easier, I think, than adding and subtracting because if you multiply fractions, let's say we have 1/2 times 2/3. We don't really care if they have a common denominator anymore. All we have to do is multiply straight across. One times two is two. And then two times three is six. And then we of course can reduce that to 1/3, but it's just that easy to multiply fractions. We just don't really need to change anything, just go straight across. Division is pretty easy too. What if I had 1/2 divided by 2/3? Well division of fractions is really the same thing as multiplying because we're ultimately going to multiply, but first we are going to flip the second fraction that we're dividing by and just rewrite it as a multiplication problem. So this is going to be really the same thing as 1/2 times three over two, or 3/2. Then we just multiply like we did before. One times three is three, two times…

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